


The Belonging You Seek

by lookninjas



Series: Children's Work [6]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cults, End-of-the-World Theology, Gen, Michigan, Militia Movement, Religion, Religious Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-11 15:06:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7897378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookninjas/pseuds/lookninjas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It should have been him from the start.  She should have always been his sister.  And Leia and Han and Luke and Poe could have always been her family.  And it wouldn’t have to feel like this.  Like she was choosing.  </p><p>Like she was giving up on her own mother.</p><p>Even if, maybe, her mother gave up first.</p><p>(Or: Rey sees her mother for the first time in thirteen years.  In some ways, it's better than she expected.  In a lot of others, it's worse.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Belonging You Seek

**Author's Note:**

> This story contains brief spoilers for A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning.

Leia lets Rey lean her head on her shoulder.

Leia  _ always _ lets Rey lean her head on her shoulder.

“It was a mistake,” Rey says, even though she isn’t really sure. She isn’t sure about a lot of things right now.

“Maybe,” Leia says, and rests her cheek on Rey’s hair, wraps her arm around Rey’s shoulders. “Some mistakes are worth making, though.”

_ Do you wish you hadn’t gone? _ Rey asked, once, and Ben took a deep breath, sighed it out, shrugged.

Then, unexpectedly, he smiled.  _ Not really _ , he said.  _ Not since I met you, anyway. _

That probably isn’t what Leia is thinking of, but Rey doesn’t know Leia’s secrets. Just hers and Ben’s. And those are secrets enough.

“I think it was easier when I thought everything was my fault,” she admits, and Leia pulls her closer, sighs.

“It usually is,” she says.

A car slips past them, headlights brightening the dusk. Leia stretches one bare foot down to touch the wooden boards of the porch, pushing the swing into motion. Rocking them both together. 

_ I don’t think it ever really stops. I think you just keep going. _

Leia has kept going. Somehow, Rey will, too.

Right now, just the thought of it makes her eyes well with tears, and she has to hide her face in Leia’s shoulder. 

Leia’s hand strokes her hair. “Ssh, baby,” she says, rocking them gently. She calls Ben that sometimes, even now. Rey should probably have an opinion about Leia calling them both by the same name, but she doesn’t. Not really. “Ssh. I know. I know.”

She does, too. Leia has been left behind too. Leia knows. It doesn’t really help, though. It kind of just makes things worse. 

“Ssh,” Leia says again, and Rey cries quietly into her blouse. “Ssh.”

  
  


*

  
  


When the man before Plutt walked away from them -- Rey doesn’t even know why he did it, really, just that one day he was sweeping her up in the air and making her laugh and the next he was gone and her mom was crying again -- but when he walked away, Rey’s mother started sleeping in her bed. It was small, too small for both of them, but her mother curled around her and clutched her close and said, “It’s just you and me now, Rey. It’s just you and me. I don’t need anyone else but you.”

And it was awful, but it felt good. It felt so, so good that Rey knew it had to be awful. That it made her a bad person to be happy that her mother was alone, that her mother had no one else. That her mother was hers and only hers.

So when Plutt came along, Rey promised God she would be happy for her mother, and grateful to have a father. That she would be good, and cheerful, and never ever jealous.

She still doesn’t know if she succeeded, but she knows that at least she tried.

  
  


*

  
  


It doesn’t hit her until they’re standing inside the Wendy’s, several careful steps inside the doorway, so as not to block any incoming traffic -- she no longer knows exactly who she’s looking for. Her mother has faded in her mind to nothing but a bluish shadow, the light chambray shirts she wore buttoned all the way up to her throat, the long denim skirt that covered the toes of her thick white sneakers. The faint grayish tinge of the scarf that covered her hair. But she doesn’t remember what color her mother’s hair was, anymore; she doesn’t remember what her eyes looked like. She remembers how wide she used to smile, but not if her teeth were crooked or straight. 

Panic clutches at her chest, hot and tight. Her mother could be anyone. Her mother might not even be here yet. Her mother might never show up at all.

Then Ben squeezes her hand. Rey glances up at him, sees him staring fixedly at a booth on the far side of the restaurant, near the back. The woman there is wearing a floral scarf over long, straight hair -- the same light brown as Rey’s, just with more silver in it. Her long-sleeved blue shirt is buttoned all the way up to her throat. She’s staring back at them, mouth a little open, eyes wide. Rey can’t see what color they are, but they look familiar. Like hers, maybe.

Her mother slides out of the booth, stands. She’s wearing jeans. Rey can’t remember the last time she saw her mother in any kind of pants. She barely wears them herself, even now. It sparks something in her, a nervous fluttering that’s almost like hope. Maybe. Maybe.

Maybe.

  
  


*

  
  


He is standing in the doorway. 

Desiree and Thomas are still sleeping, oblivious, but Rey is awake. She feels like she’s been awake for hours now, waiting. She just didn’t know what she was waiting for.

And now Ben is standing in the doorway, and she knows, and she’s so glad. So very, very glad.

  
  


*

  
  


Sometimes, she thinks she likes Poe more than she really should, or at least more than she would expect herself to like him. 

She isn’t sure why, exactly. She remembers liking the man before Plutt, the one who left so abruptly -- she missed him, even, when he was gone. She didn’t like Plutt, but Plutt was basically evil; it was never anything in her that turned her against him. She gets that now. Most days, anyway. If there were other men before those two, she doesn’t remember them. But she doesn’t think she was jealous then. She knows she has no reason to be jealous now.

Well, she knows it most days, anyway.

Still. There are times when she wonders if, maybe, she should like Poe a little less than she does. 

Then he’s in the kitchen of Leia’s house, setting a stack of pizzas down on the kitchen table (he’s been trying to get Rey to admit that Buddy’s is far superior to any pizza she ever had in Northern Michigan; the most she’s willing to concede is that it’s probably about as good as Mighty Fine, but certainly not better), and Rey doesn’t quite run up to him, but she walks pretty fast. Because she didn’t realize it, maybe, but she needs Poe right now. She just does.

“Hey, sweetheart.” He holds his arms out without hesitation, and Rey steps right into them, rests her head on his shoulder and lets him wrap around her. He hugs her almost as well as Ben does, and if she thinks about it, it’s not really a fair contest when Ben has known her thirteen years and Poe has known her three months. Also, Ben’s arms are a lot longer. “How’s it going?”

And Rey likes Poe so much that she’s almost tempted to tell him the truth. Almost. “Better,” she says, instead. Because she wants to be better. Because part of her still thinks that if she just fakes it, she can make herself be better, faster. Without having to work so hard for it.

Poe makes a humming noise deep in his chest. “Liar,” he says, reaching up to cradle the back of her head with one hand, holding her carefully in place. Not that she’s actually trying to get away. “It’s okay, though,” he adds, after a moment. “You will be. You’re gonna be just fine.”

She  _ was _ better. It’s something she’s been telling herself a lot, lately. That things were pretty rough when she and Ben first ran away together, but then they got better. And now things are rough again, but that’s okay. She can get better again, too. She’s done it before.

“I know,” she says, and Poe chuckles. It’s a nice sound. “I know. I just… It’s just hard. Right now.”

Poe doesn’t laugh at that. He holds her a little bit tighter, but not so tight that it hurts. He really is good at giving hugs. “I know,” he says, softly. And then, “But you know you have me as long as you want me, right? I’m not Ben, but. I’m still here. As long as you want me.”

Rey’s eyes tear up and she tucks her face more firmly against his shirt. Because he might not be Ben, but sometimes he feels awfully close. And it’s not so much that she likes him more than she expected to, but that she might love him, a little. 

And it’s not even so much that she thinks she might love him a little but that sometimes, when he says things like this, she thinks he might love her back.

Plutt hated her. The boyfriend before him, she thinks, liked her, but  _ liked _ was all it ever was. If there were other men before him, she doesn’t remember them at all, and her father was never there at all. The idea that someone could love Ben and love her at the same time is… challenging. Maybe it shouldn’t be, but it is.

“Don’t let go yet,” she says, and hopes that Poe’s shirt muffles it enough that he can’t hear it.

But he does. He’s like Ben, that way.

“I won’t,” he tells her, solemn as a promise. “I won’t.”

He doesn’t, either.

  
  


*

  
  


One day, Plutt made Rey and her mother go into the bathroom, and Rey stood there and watched as her mother threw out all the makeup in the medicine cabinet. The black eyeliner, the red lipstick, the blush and the powder and the foundation and the concealer and the eyeshadow and the green stuff that Rey never really knew what it was for and six different colors of nail polish. All of it, in the garbage.

Her mother used to spend so long standing and staring at the makeup in the grocery store. She didn’t buy it very often, but she liked to look. To daydream.

Rey looked up at her mother’s naked face. Even without the lipstick, her mother smiled like a beauty queen. “It’s good to be free,” her mother told her, and she sounded like she meant it. “Isn’t it good to be free?”

Plutt was standing in the doorway of the bathroom like a sentinel. Rey didn’t feel very free. She felt a little scared.

She smiled back anyway, and nodded. There wasn’t anything else she could do.

  
  


*

  
  


At first her mother holds her loosely, more the suggestion of pressure than an actual touch. But then there’s a beat, a breath; her arms slip around her mother’s waist and her cheek touches the scarf covering her mother’s hair and her mother’s grip tightens, just like that, pulling her in closer. Clinging again.

Plutt’s gone, of course. And there probably isn’t anyone new. 

In that moment, Rey doesn’t care. 

Then the moment passes; her mother pulls away again, dabbing at her eyes with her knuckles. Rey sniffles, too, smiling down at her. “Sorry,” her mother says. “I just… I missed you. I understand if it doesn’t seem that way, but I -- I did miss you. I missed you every day.”

“I missed you too,” Rey says, immediately. Because it’s the only thing that matters right now, standing in this Wendy’s in her skirt and her sandals, with her mom right there in front of her, crying. The rest of it, the anger, the confusion, how abandoned she’d felt -- None of it matters now. “I -- God, I missed you so much.”

“I’m so sorry.” Her mother reaches up, cups Rey’s cheek in her hand. “I want you to know how sorry I am, Rey. I wasn’t… I wasn’t a good mother to you. I know that now. I couldn’t be what you needed. I’m sorry.”

Rey knows she should argue, but the problem is that she doesn’t know if she can. She loves her mother; she missed her mother. But when she tries to think of when her mother did right by her -- “You were doing the best you could,” she says, instead. “It was hard for you.”

It was hard for Ben, too. Harder, maybe. She tries not to let herself think about that too much.

“It wasn’t enough.” Then her mother’s eyes are sliding off her, looking beyond her, and  _ up _ , and Rey knows. Ben’s given them all the time he could without looking ridiculous. He’s finally coming towards them.

And when he does, something changes in her mother’s face. It’s not the way her mother used to look at Plutt or Snoke, that careful mask of joy that hid something frightened underneath. It’s genuine; there’s a light there. But there’s a little too much light, almost. It makes Rey uneasy. “Kylo Ren,” her mother says, softly, and even with Ben hovering a few careful inches away from Rey’s back, she can feel him stiffen at the sound of his old name. “Thank you for taking such good care of my daughter, for so many years.”

  
  


*

  
  


_ \-- likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire -- _

He combs the tangles out of her hair with careful hands, parts it down the middle, sweeps half of it over her left shoulder and out of the way. Pigtails, then. And french braids, too -- he gathers up a little hair from right at her forehead, separates it into three sections, and starts working, twisting a little more in every time. 

He used to be too slow to do this in the mornings before school. He’s getting a lot faster now. 

_ Not with braided hair. _

It’s too late to argue about it, she tells herself. She should’ve fought him, the way she fought for the skirts. She didn’t fight, really. Mostly she just cried. But she could’ve cried about her hair, too, and she didn’t. She knew what he was doing. Even if her mother never braided her hair, some of the First Order girls did. Patience, once. And Jessa Lynn. And Plutt scolded her the first time when he saw what they’d done, and made her read Timothy, and threatened to cut her hair off if it ever happened again, and so the next time someone braided Rey’s hair she took it down before Plutt could see.

But she liked it, and she likes it now, and so that probably makes her a bad person. Because she didn’t cry or fight or tell Ben he couldn’t braid her hair. She likes her braided hair. It’s pretty.

Ben finishes the first braid, twists an elastic around it, gives it a little tug. “You awake up there?” he asks.

Rey just shrugs and makes a humming noise, because it’s too late to be good when she knows she doesn’t really want to be. It’s easier just to let him keep going, steady fingers in her hair lulling her into something that feels like being safe.

  
  


*

  
  


Finn likes to hold her hand. 

The truth is, Rey kind of likes it too. 

It’s still incredibly weird when she actually stops to think about it -- that her stepfather killed his father and now here they are and he’s dragging her around Ann Arbor showing her his favorite places in the city because he’s going to U of M and she’s going to be starting U of M in the fall and so apparently he needs her to see these things. Even though she’s been on two different campus tours and gone apartment hunting once already with Ben and Poe. But that, according to Finn, was different. Because she wasn’t with him.

Sometimes she thinks Finn even wants to be her friend. Even though her stepfather killed his father.

It’s weird.

But then Finn stops in the middle of the Diag, right on top of the giant M set into the red brick, closes his eyes and tips his head back and just beams up at the sky, like he and the sun are having some kind of silent competition, and everything stops being weird.

Which is weird in and of itself, really.

“I love this spot,” Finn announces, and Rey glances around, trying to see what he sees. Even though his eyes are currently closed. Maybe she should close hers, too. It might help. 

He cracks one eye open, looks sideways at her. “You’re from Jackson, right? Someone told me that. I don’t remember who. But I remember someone telling me that.”

“Yeah,” Rey says, throat suddenly dry. They were barely even in Jackson, that day. They just… dipped in, a little. It’s not like she went to her old house by the train tracks or anything. They went to the Wendy’s just off 127, and then they left again. Probably weren’t even there half an hour. “Yeah, when I was little. I don’t really remember much about it.”

Finn rocks forward on his toes a little. Doesn’t let go of her hand. He stops staring at the sun, looks out at the green lawns, the manicured trees, the benches. “We had to move in with my grandmother, after,” he says. “It wasn’t great. I remember when I came here for my first tour, though. Hux took me. He’d just come back from Afghanistan; I told him he didn’t have to but he said he did. You know how it is. But I remember standing here and thinking, you know. About everywhere I’d been, and everything I’d gone through. And how hard I’d worked to get out of that, and get someplace better. And then I was here, with Hux, and it just felt like… And I’d earned it, that was the thing. I worked my ass off to get to this place. And I knew nothing was gonna stop me. Not anymore. If I could get here, I could do anything. And so can you, Rey. So can you.”

She wants to believe him. She really does. There’s just something -- Even after all this time, she can’t quite shake it. The fear that it’s all going to fall apart. That she’s going to be dragged back again.

Her jaw wobbles. Her eyes fill up with tears.

“Yeah, I did that too,” Finn says, and tugs her close enough that their shoulders brush. “The first few times. It felt like that.”

The red brick and the green lawns and the trees and the benches all blur in front of Rey’s eyes. “I wasn’t even supposed to go to school,” Rey says, because she has to say something and there’s a lot she’s still not ready to say. But this was in her valedictorian speech, so it feels safe enough. “My mom was going to homeschool me. Bible stuff, mostly. Cooking and cleaning. Plutt wanted more kids -- I was going to help take care of them. So I’d be ready. When I got marr--” The word sticks in her throat, almost impossible to say. She forces it out anyway. “When I got married.”

She could keep going. She could tell him the rest of the story.

She keeps it locked up inside her. She’s not ready. Not yet.

“But you’re not married,” Finn tells her. “And you did go to school. And you made the most of every second of it, and you worked your ass off, and now you’re here. And some day, a couple of other kids are going to be standing here, thinking about how they weren’t supposed to but they did anyway. Because of you. Because of  _ us _ .”

Rey swallows hard, holds Finn’s hand tightly. Like if she just holds on long enough, she’ll feel what he feels. That confidence. That pride. 

“I told you I was going to meet with my mom, right?” she asks. He deserves that much at least, to understand that much. “That she wanted to talk, to me and Ben, and we said yes. And we went to see her.”

Finn’s quiet for a long moment, staring out at the diag. “That bad, huh?” he asks, finally.

“Yeah,” Rey says. “Yeah, it was that bad.”

“Sorry.”

“Me too.” Rey takes a deep breath, lets it out. Doesn’t close her eyes. She can still see, almost, the street outside their first apartment. The snow falling underneath the streetlights. 5 am, New Year’s Day.

_ Everything’s still here. And so are we. _

She’ll have to tell Finn that story someday, maybe. He’d like it.

In the meantime, she nudges Finn with her shoulder until he moves off the M, steps onto it in her turn. Tells herself: this is hers now. She can come here every day if she wants to. Finn would probably come with her, if she asked. Hold her hand, and look out at the red and the green and the gray of it all, and never once think she was weird for it.

She tilts her head back, stares up at the sky, and lets the sunlight wash over her.

Everything’s still here. And so is she.

  
  


*

  
  


The day Plutt took away her books, Rey’s mother actually left the safety of their little house on the First Order compound, followed Rey when Rey went running, came after her.

Rey had already found Kylo, of course. He was at the range with Hux -- their guns were so loud that it made Rey’s ears ring and her whole head ache, but she ran to him anyway, waited until after he’d fired his next shot before tugging on his jeans to get his attention.

Kylo stared down at her for a long moment. Then he hit Hux on the shoulder until he turned to look too, passed his gun over, and immediately crouched down to scoop Rey up and hold her close.

Rey thought he was asking her something, but she couldn’t hear over the ringing in her ears. And it wouldn’t matter if she answered, because he still had his earmuffs on anyway. 

So she just cried into his shoulder until her hearing came back again, until she heard Kylo talking to someone, saying, “ -- genius, and I don’t care  _ what _ Plutt says. I don’t listen to him. Rey’s going to be very valuable to the First Order someday. I don’t think the Supreme Leader would agree that we should just push that aside so she can be a housewife. Do you?”

And then Rey heard her mother, so timid, so afraid, say, “If you think the Supreme Leader wants her to read…”

Her mother only left the safety of their house for Meetings. She never came to the firing range, which was men’s territory. She never chased after Rey. 

“I do,” Kylo said, and Rey turned her head, peeked at her mother -- standing there with her hands clutched tight in front of her, staring at Kylo with wide eyes. She looked like she’d been crying. “I’ll talk to him. Tonight. You’ll see. Rey has potential. She’s smart, and she’s brave, and God has great plans for her. She just needs a teacher.”

Rey’s mother still stared at him, mouth shaped in an  _ O _ . “You?” she asked, voice barely a whisper.

The first thing Kylo said was “No,” so fast that Rey was almost mad at him for it because  _ why not _ , and then he paused and said, “Maybe. I don’t know. And I shouldn’t presume. I guess if it’s me then it is, and if not then Supreme Leader will find someone suitable.” He paused a little longer and then added, “But I would. If he asked me. It would be an honor.”

It would be good, being taught by Kylo Ren. Reading books and talking about them, asking questions, having him ask her questions. She would like that. 

Which probably meant that it wouldn’t ever happen. Rey was starting to think that good things never happened to anyone here. Anyway, Kylo Ren was their prophet and God needed him for that, and God would always be more important than Rey because He was God and she was a little girl. So Kylo Ren would stay a prophet, and Rey would stay with her mother and Plutt, and honestly it would’ve been better if Kylo Ren hadn’t ever gotten her hopes up.

She turned her face back into his shirt and held on tighter, because she wanted to pretend a little longer anyway.

“Don’t be afraid,” Kylo said, almost kind, and Rey wasn’t sure who he was talking to. “Go back home. I’ll take Rey for now. She’s safe with me.”

“Of course,” her mother said, quickly. Her voice was brighter now, bright and happy again. “I’ll -- of course. Thank you, Kylo Ren. For taking such good care of my daughter.”

Rey couldn’t see her walking away. But she knew, somehow, that she was. Walking away and not looking back, not even once.

Somewhere to Rey’s left, Hux snorted. “You’d make a terrible teacher, you know. You have the patience of a two year-old.”

“Just because I don’t have patience for you doesn’t mean I’m not patient at all.” Kylo hitched Rey up a little higher in his arms. She was probably getting heavy. She should probably let him put her down. Instead, she just clung. “It’s up to Supreme Leader. I’m sure he’ll know what’s best.”

“Right, right.” Hux didn’t sound impressed. “It’s about lunch time. Rey should probably eat something. I’ll take her, if you’re still fasting.”

“No.” Kylo said it quick, like he didn’t want to let go of Rey either. He’d have to eventually, of course. Rey already knew that. “I’ve got her. It’s fine.”

He started walking, Rey bouncing a little in his arms. She grabbed his shirt in both hands and held on tight.

  
  


*

  
  


“I’m sorry; you’re just so -- “ Rey’s mother reaches across the table, touches Rey’s cheek, beaming. “I still remember when Leader Snoke told me what had happened. What he  _ said _ happened; I know, now. I know he was --” 

_ Lying _ . It sticks in her throat, still. Rey remembers what that was like. How unthinkable, that the Supreme Leader could lie to them. 

“And I won’t pretend I fought; I… Well.” Her mother’s smile turns a little pained. “I was never like you, Rey. Even then, you were stronger than I was. I knew that. I guess it made sense to me, in a way. When he said you weren’t really mine. That you were like Kylo -- Like Ben.” Quick correction, eager; a hint of desperation in her eyes. Fear. “That the two of you were God’s children. And that only Ben, who was like you, could teach you what you needed to know. You were just so... different. From me. It wasn’t so hard to believe that maybe God wanted you with someone else instead. Someone who could give you more.”

The worst thing is, there’s a part of Rey that almost believes it, too. Because didn’t it feel like she was waiting for something, that night? Didn’t she know what she couldn’t have known -- that Ben was coming for her? That he was going to fix things for her?

Didn’t Ben himself tell her, over and over again, that it was God’s will? That he was meant to take her away, give her a better life?

It shouldn’t be different. It shouldn’t matter that her mother believed it, too. 

But it does.

“And I guess Snoke was right about this one thing, because… Just look at you,” her mother says. “Beautiful, modest, accomplished -- Luke told me you were going to college now. College. I was supposed to homeschool you, you know. Can you imagine that? Not that -- Your stepfather always said that there wasn’t anything you needed to know that I couldn’t teach you. That what I knew was enough. He didn’t see anything in you, any kind of a future. He didn’t understand. That you could do more. Be more.

“But you, Ben.” Her mother’s hand stretches across the table, closes over Ben’s. He blinks at her, frozen. “You saw what no one else did. How brilliant she was. How good it could be if she got a chance to make something of herself. Use that beautiful brain. And I thank God for you every day. That my Rey wasn’t just given to the first man who’d take her, but was chosen. By someone who saw what she could be and was willing to let her become it, who was gentle and kind and -- A good man. And maybe, someday, a good husband?”

It’s so hopeful. Rey’s throat goes dry; her stomach twists. 

“I --” Ben looks at Rey like he’s looking for help, but she has nothing for him. The only thing she can think is that she doesn’t know why she’s surprised. It’s exactly what her mother would want for her. A good husband. A good provider. That Ben gives her freedom is a miracle that Rey’s mother probably never thought to look for. It would be enough for her mother to imagine her having a home, and a man to share it with.

She wonders, vaguely, what her mother thought her life was like all these years. What she would have imagined.

She can’t even begin to picture it.

“Rey’s my sister.” Ben carefully slides his hands out from under Rey’s mother’s, tucks them under the table like he’s afraid she’ll try to touch him again. “Not -- I don’t know what Snoke told you? Or what he implied, but -- Rey’s a sister to me. My sister. And I love her. I do. I love her more than just about anyone but… It’s not like that. It has never been like that. I mean, she was five. When we ran. When I ran with her. She was five years old. And I know you’re not saying that I would’ve --”

“Oh, no!” The horror on her mother’s face is comfortingly believable, at least. “No, of course. Of course not. I never thought for a second that you -- Please believe me. If I did, I would have --”

She falters, there, and Rey realizes that her mother probably wouldn’t have done anything, even if she wanted to. She wouldn’t have known where to begin. She still doesn’t.

“I trusted you,” Rey’s mother says, instead. “You were so good, and God was with you, and I knew… You would never hurt my Rey. I knew that. I never thought you would. Never.”

“Because I wouldn’t,” Ben says, but there’s a tightness in his voice that wasn’t there before. Ben has always had a different view of what constitutes  _ hurting Rey _ than Rey’s mother did. Does. Still does. “I -- Still. I mean, she’s not even nineteen yet. I’m almost ten years older. That’s --”

“Ben.” Because the fear on her mother’s face is subtle, but it’s growing more and more by the second, and even after all this time Rey still can’t bear that look. 

Ben, of course, doesn’t recognize it at all. “Even if I wasn’t --” He hesitates on the edge of an admission that would probably send Rey’s mother into shock, backs off abruptly. “You don’t think that’s too young? Not even a little? Because I personally think that it’s way,  _ way _ too --”

“ _ Ben _ .” Rey’s voice is, maybe, sharper than it needs to be; it’s sharp enough that her mother flinches. But at least Ben shuts the hell up. Just to make it clear, she adds, “Stop.”

Ben glances at her, jaw set and dark eyes narrowed. Then he takes a deep breath, turns his eyes forward, sets his hands on the table where everyone can see them and says, “Sorry,” voice tight and not at all apologetic. “I’m sorry.”

Rey lays her hand over his wrist, less to keep him calm and more to remind herself that she has something sturdy to lean on. “I know --” She stops, breathes, tries again. “I remember some of the things Plutt said. About how things were supposed to be between men and women. But that’s not how Ben was raised, and it’s not how he raised me. I’m not married. To Ben or to anyone. And I’m not planning on marrying for a long time, if I ever do. I know that’s maybe not what you expected for me. But that’s how things are. Ben’s my brother. He loves me and he protects me, because that’s what brothers do. He doesn’t have to be anything else. This is enough.”

“Of course,” her mother says, head bowed, visibly subdued. “I… Of course. I’m sorry. Leader Snoke  _ did _ suggest… But I shouldn’t have presumed. I’m -- If I offended you. I’m very sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Ben says, gentler now. His arm is still tense under Rey’s hand, his hand curled into a fist. But she knows how hard he’s trying. “It’s… Some of the things Snoke taught me. I have a hard time remembering that they were wrong, too. Even now. It’s… It’s okay. I understand.”

Rey’s mother nods, doesn’t lift her head. “Thank you,” she says, softly. “Thank you.”

  
  


*

  
  


Violet doesn’t marry Count Olaf, but Rey cries anyway and she isn’t sure why. 

“It’s okay,” Ben tells her, curled around her, his forehead pressed to her hair. “It’s okay, Rey.”

Her mom told her once that it was just the two of them. That there would never be anyone else. Just Rey and her mom, together, and everything would be better.

Except there was someone else. There was always someone else.

It’s different now. Because it  _ is _ just her and Ben, really and truly, and that’s a lot scarier than she knew. People will come and go -- Maz will give them some money, or make them come for dinner; her teachers will want to talk to Ben about things; Rey will make friends and visit them and Ben will hopefully make friends too and they can come and visit -- but they’ll only be guests. There for a little bit and then gone again.

Her mom’s not coming to get her. Ben’s not going to run home to his parents. They’re not orphans for real, not like the Baudelaires, but that doesn’t mean they have parents anymore. There’s no one to protect them now. 

It’s just the two of them.

And Rey knows that Ben will protect her, and she’s going to try to protect him, but she still can’t imagine anything scarier. 

“It’s okay,” Ben tells her, and maybe Rey’s imagining it, but he sounds scared too. “It’s gonna be okay.”

She doesn’t stop crying. 

Eventually, she cries herself to sleep like that.

  
  


*

  
  


“I’m sorry,” Hux says, watching her intently from the other side of the table. His hands are folded in front of him, clenched tightly -- the thin skin of his knuckles stretched taut enough to show yellow bone underneath.. “I wish there was more I could say than that. But I guess there isn’t, really.”

He’s lying, of course. Trying to protect her. But Rey was never afraid of Hux. A lot of the kids were, at least back then, on the compound. They were as afraid of Hux as they were of Ben. Rey was never afraid of either of them. 

“Yeah, there is,” she tells him. “There is. Go ahead and say it.”

Hux’s jaw tightens. He turns his face away. There’s color high on his cheekbones. It isn’t embarrassment. “She’s your mother,” he says, tightly. “You still love her. You don’t need --”

Rey takes a deep breath. “Maybe I do,” she says. Because isn’t this why she went to Hux, in the end? Not Leia, or Poe, or Finn, but Hux? She could have talked to any of them. She didn’t. She talked to Hux. “Please, Hux? Please.”

“Fine.” He bites the word out, face still turned away from her. His profile is sharp enough to draw blood. “Fine. Although I don’t know why you need me to say it. You know exactly what she did. She can pretend all she wants to that it wasn’t her fault. That she was too weak to take care of you. That she wasn’t strong enough. The truth is it was just easier. She could have done what Ben did, but that would have been hard, and she just…” He presses his lips together, draws in a deep breath through his nose. “She didn’t care enough to put in the effort, so she made it someone else’s problem and told herself it was the right thing to do. Is that what you wanted to hear, Rey?”

It isn’t. Of course it isn’t. Rey’s eyes sting with tears. “Keep going,” she says, softly.

“God,” Hux breathes, and tilts his head back, and looks up at the ceiling. “Fine. The worst thing is that she’s actually right about one thing. Just one thing. You deserved better than her. But she had no idea whether or not you were going to get it. She met Ben once. For all she knew, he was exactly what Snoke tried to make him. That he was better, that he was  _ good _ \-- that was blind luck on her part. She had no way of knowing. 

“And now she’s going to try to take credit for what you’ve become, but it’s nothing to do with her. Ben’s parents, yes -- I don’t know everything they did, behind the scenes, but I know they did a lot. That Maz woman, too. Even my parents. When you and Ben were in that car accident? Remember that? And I called, and Ben didn’t pick up the phone, and it was you? Because he’d wrecked the car and had a concussion, and his ribs, and his arm --”

Rey remembers. They were in the hospital and she was in Ben’s narrow hospital bed, and she didn’t know what to do or who to call and then Ben’s phone rang and she just -- answered, without thinking. 

“You sang to me,” she says, softly. 

Journey. He’d sung Journey to her, and it helped. And then Maz came to get them and take them back to the little house in Cross Village, even though Rey had never called her because she couldn’t think to do so. She wasn’t sure if Hux called Maz, or maybe Maz just knew. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that someone, anyone, came.

“I was going to go AWOL,” Hux says, voice thick. “Really, truly. I was just about to go overseas for the second time so I called to say good-bye and you answered, and you were so frightened and I just -- You needed an adult, Rey. I mean, I guess Ben was one, at that point. Barely. But I was older, and I thought -- But my dad talked me out of it. Reminded me that you had Maz and Ben’s parents, and that if they needed to, they could step in any time. And then he bought Ben that stupid truck. Just prove a point, I think. That he could reach out whenever he wanted. That he could give you what you needed.

“ _ She _ could’ve done that. Maybe not the truck; I know she hasn’t got any money, but she could’ve done something. You know that’s not the first time Luke went to her. He’s been trying. Ever since he heard about you, about your mom, he’s been visiting her. Talking to her. Trying to get her involved somehow. All she had to do was say yes. And she could’ve been there, the way the rest of us were.

“But she didn’t. Everyone else did, and she didn’t. And I can’t forgive her for that. And I won’t. I won’t. And if I’m really honest, Rey, I don’t think you should either. Because she doesn’t deserve it. She doesn’t deserve you.”

His hand closes, finally, over hers. Tight enough to bruise.

“Thank you,” Rey says, and closes her eyes, and bows her head. She’s leaking tears steadily now, and everything hurts, but maybe that’s the point. “Thank you,” she says again.

“Jesus Christ,” Hux says. He drops her hand abruptly and pushes to his feet. Startled, Rey looks up, but he’s already rounded the table, grabbing at her hand again. “God. ” He crouches by her chair, wraps an arm around her, pulls her in -- their joined hands pressed between her neck and his chest, knuckles digging into her chin. “Maybe we shouldn’t have let you stay with Ben. I legitimately think he’s warped you.”

He’s lying again, of course. “Shut up, Hux,” Rey says, pressing her forehead against his collarbone. He’s really skinny for someone in the Army -- or the Navy, whichever. It’s possible Seabees don’t work out as much as the rest of them. Or maybe this is just how Hux is built. Every part of him sharp. 

Hux tilts his head down, and the stubble on his cheeks scratches against her temple. Every part of him sharp. “Yes ma’am,” he says, voice soft, and holds on to her.

He’ll be going back to California in three more days. She isn’t really ready for that. Not yet.

“You’re going to start calling more than once a year,” she says, voice cracking. “Right?”

Hux makes a noise that is probably supposed to be a laugh but doesn’t really sound like one. At all. “Maybe,” he says, and rubs his stubble against her face again. “I’ll think about it.”

  
  


*

  
  


“So this is the little girl causing all the commotion.”

Rey stared up at the Supreme Leader, sitting ensconced behind his desk, and felt something she’d never ever felt before. She’d been scared, sometimes, mostly of Plutt, but this went beyond that. She couldn’t swallow. She could barely blink. She thought, maybe, she might just die right there.

She glanced back over her shoulder at the man standing behind her -- Mr. Mitaka, Desiree’s father. He stared straight ahead at the wall, like none of this was happening.

She wanted Kylo Ren there to protect her. She wanted him very badly.

Supreme Leader stood up from behind his desk -- he was taller than Plutt, maybe, but not as tall as Kylo Ren, and very very thin. He didn’t have a lot of hair left; his nose was narrow and almost flat. His eyes were black and cold. He crouched down in front of Rey, reached out to touch her cheek with rough, dry fingertips, and she really truly felt like she was about to burst into tears. 

“You should be proud,” he said, softly. “Kylo Ren thinks you show a great potential. Clever. Brave. A decent marksman -- or marks _ woman _ , I suppose. He sees great things in your future. And I suppose if anyone knows the future, well. It would be him, wouldn’t it?”

Rey wasn’t sure if the Supreme Leader was actually asking or not. After all, he was Leader. He knew. But maybe he needed to know that she knew, so she nodded quickly. She didn’t want to make the Supreme Leader angry. Not at all.

“But.” Snoke stopped touching her face, picked up a lock of her hair instead. Twisted it between his fingers. Rey wondered, suddenly, what she would do if he just pulled her hair right out of her head. If he grabbed it and yanked it out of her head, what would she do about that? Nothing, probably. What could she do? He was Supreme Leader. “You are so very young yet. And that means we have a long, long time before you’re even close to ready to realize your potential. Don’t we, little Rey-of-Sunshine?”

She couldn’t speak. She could barely breathe. The best she could manage was to nod again.

“Things are happening very quickly,” Supreme Leader told her. He tugged at the scarf on her head, adjusted the collar of her shirt. He had long, thin, strong fingers. She wanted them to stop touching her. She wanted to slap them away and then just run, run as far and as fast as she could until he couldn’t find her anymore. “There is about to be a very great change. A very great change indeed. Kylo Ren will have much to do, as will I. I’m afraid there simply won’t be time for us to start training you right now. 

“Later, maybe. When things have settled. I don’t imagine it will take too long. A year or two, no more than that. You’ll still be a child of course. Ready to learn. To be shaped.” 

Rey thought of Snoke’s hands on her again, molding her like clay, and had to fight to suppress a sob.

“But you’ll need to be patient for now.” Both his hands settled on her shoulders, heavy and hard, pushing down a little bit. “Can you do that? Can you be patient, Rey-of-Sunshine?”

She nodded a third time. Anything to get his hands off her. Anything to get away.

He smiled. 

She trembled.

“For now, we’ll give you a little space from your stepfather,” Snoke said. He tapped his long fingers against her chest, right over her heart, and then stood up and walked away. “He’s very loyal to the First Order, but I find some of his theology to be… outdated. We’ll place you in the Children’s House, like Mitaka’s daughter. You can attend the school, if you like. And of course you’ll be able to visit your mother and stepfather whenever you wish, _ if _ you wish.” He sat himself back down at his desk. “As far as anything else, I will of course be praying quite regularly about it. The Lord will guide me in what comes next. He always does.”

He smiled at Rey one last time, then pulled a piece of paper in front of him, began to write. “Mitaka,” he said, without looking up. “Take her back to her home and have her mother pack her belongings. And give them time to say goodbye, of course. If Plutt has concerns, he can come to me after Meeting. Not before. Kylo Ren and I have work to do, and I cannot be disturbed. I want that very clear. I must not be disturbed until Meeting. Things are changing, Mitaka. They’re changing very quickly.”

“Of course.” Mitaka nodded his head, shoulders coming forward almost like a bow. “Of course, Supreme Leader. Your will be done.”

“God’s will be done,” Supreme Leader said, sounding amused. “Not mine. God’s.”

“Of course,” Mitaka said again, stepping forward to take Rey by the shoulder.

Rey didn’t let him move her. She wanted to, really, but there was something she still needed to ask. Something she’d promised herself she would ask for, before she left. “My books,” she said, voice wobbling dangerously. “Plutt took them. If I’m leaving -- can I have them back please?”

Supreme Leader set his pen down on the desk. Then, very slowly, he looked up at her. He was smiling, not scowling, but it was still scary. It was probably worse that way, honestly. “I’ll talk to your stepfather about returning them,” he said, finally. “Assuming he hasn’t done something ridiculous like burning them. But there’s books in the Children’s House, and in the school. Feel free to read whatever catches your fancy. Perhaps one day you and I can talk about books. When there’s more time.”

Rey hoped there would never be time. Never ever. “Yes, Supreme Leader,” she managed. “Thank you, Supreme Leader.”

His smile turned indulgent, maybe a little smug. “You’re very welcome. Little Rey-of-Sunshine.”

This time, when Mitaka pulled at her shoulder, she went gratefully. Anything to be out of that room. She never, ever wanted to go back.

  
  


*

  
  


None of them say anything for a long time. Rey’s hand stays settled on Ben’s wrist, above the watch he still likes to wear sometimes; her mother’s head stays bowed. It aches in a way Rey hadn’t expected. She’d braced herself for an outright rejection, but not for this.

In retrospect, she isn’t really sure why. 

“Do you talk to him, ever?” she asks, finally. Her mother looks up, eyes dulled. “Plutt, I mean. Do you -- Do you visit him?”

“You’re very kind to ask,” her mother says, sounding exhausted. “I did. For a while. Not… Not anymore.” She shakes her head. “I wish I could say it was because it had finally started to sink in -- what he’d done, killing that man, but… It was you.”

She doesn’t look at Rey when she says it. She looks at Ben.

“He hated you, you know. Said you were… Tainted. By where you’d come from. Who your parents were. He suggested things about you and your friend Hux that I can’t even --”

Ben is chalk white; Rey clasps his hand. 

“When the police came for us, he blamed it on you. Said you’d betrayed us. He wouldn’t let it go. Even after the trial, after everything, he insisted that you’d brought us all down. That everything to come was your fault. I told him, over and over -- You were our prophet. God chose you -- sent you to us. You would never --”

“Actually, I did.” Ben’s voice is flat. Remorseless. “I saw an article in the paper about the man Plutt killed. I didn’t know Plutt was the one to do it. But I knew it was the First Order. So I called my father, and I told him everything, and he called the police for me, so I wouldn’t have to do it. But I would’ve. If he’d told me to, I would have. They killed somebody. They would have killed more people, if I hadn’t stopped them. So yes. Plutt was right about me. He was absolutely right. I betrayed the First Order. I turned them all in. Even you. And I’m proud of that. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done.”

Rey’s mother just stares, stunned. 

“And I’m not a prophet,” Ben continues, still in that flat voice. Rey almost wishes he was angry again. It would be easier if he were angry. “I don’t see the future. I never did. I pretended like I did, because when I did, he would stop --” 

He catches himself on the verge of an admission that even Rey hasn’t heard before, that she isn’t sure she wants to hear. She remembers, with startling clarity, Snoke’s long, thin fingers touching her face. How frightened she was. How she would’ve done anything to get away.

And Ben was alone with him so much. 

“He would leave me alone,” Ben says, finally. “If I told him what he wanted to hear. So I got good at figuring out what that was, and saying it. Making it convincing. I got so good that even I started to believe it. But none of it was true. It was just what I had to do. To get away. 

“And I don’t think God  _ chose _ me for that. He didn’t send me to the First Order so I could --” Another catch. Another thing he can’t bring himself to say. His eyes are shining with tears. “If God ever had anything to do with anything on the Compound -- Letting me become Rey’s brother, that was it. That was the one time I felt the hand of God on me, guiding me. Everything else was just Snoke. Seeing what he could make us do. How far he could push us. Like it was a game for him. To see what he could make us all do. He was good at it. Maybe not as good as he thought, but. I think he pushed us all pretty far. Don’t you?”

Rey’s mother sits frozen, eyes wide, chin wobbling like she’s about to cry. 

Rey feels like crying herself, but probably not for the same reasons. She can’t think of anything to say. She can’t bring herself to defend her mother, not now. 

She never should have let Ben come with her.

“I’m sorry,” Ben adds, a little stiffly. “But I’m not who you thought I was. And I can’t --” He glances at Rey, and says, “I’m sorry,” a little softer. And then “Maybe I --”

But he doesn’t finish. He doesn’t need to. It’s in his glassy eyes and his pale skin and the way his breath hitches in his chest. And Rey can’t undo what she’s done; she can’t make it so Ben was never here. But she can get him out again. Take him home.

“It’s okay,” Rey tells him, and then turns to face her mother. “I’m sorry,” she says. “But I think… I think Ben and I need to go now.”

  
  


*

  
  


Snoke goes to jail the day that Rey starts the first grade. Ben doesn’t know at first; neither does Rey. They find out when they walk into the party store after school lets out. The papers are right there, by the register, and Ben turns, and sees, and he stops moving, stands still like a statue.

Just for a few seconds, just long enough for him to read it, for the words to make sense.  _ The worst kind of monster _ , the headline calls him.

“First day of school?” Billy asks from behind the counter, and Ben flinches, tearing his eyes from the paper to look back over his shoulder. Rey turns, too. “Pretty exciting. Did you learn anything good?”

“Not really,” Rey says, and watches Ben turn again, walking slowly to the back of the store. He almost looks normal; if she didn’t know him like she does, she might not even be able to see it. “Mostly we just got introduced to the rest of the class. Maybe tomorrow, though.”

“Well, they can’t do all the hard stuff at once, I guess,” Billy tells her, and goes back to stocking cigarettes. “Not everyone’s smart like you. It’ll pick up, though.”

“I know.” Rey doesn’t want to walk away except for the fact that she does; she wants to stand next to Ben and hold his hand and make him feel better but she doesn’t want Billy to look too closely at Ben, at how pale and straight-backed he is, at the way his hands fidget and he stares at nothing. She wants to let him hide behind her. But she doesn’t want him to be alone.

“Rough day?” Billy asks, tilting his chin in Ben’s direction. 

It wasn’t, not until Ben saw the paper, but Rey can’t say that to anyone. “I guess,” she says instead. 

When she looks at Ben, he’s still standing in front of the tiny freezer, staring at it. He’d promised her an ice cream sandwich. She doesn’t even think she wants one anymore.

“Maybe you should go give him a hand,” Billy says, and when Rey looks at him, she realizes -- he’s not going to ask any questions. Even if he wants to, he won’t. 

It probably shouldn’t be such a huge relief, knowing that she’ll be taking care of Ben all by herself. But it kind of is anyway. 

She nods and hurries back to the freezer.

Ben still hasn’t opened the door. He just stands there until Rey’s hand slips into his and Rey leans against him, her head against his forearm. 

“Do you still want an ice cream sandwich?” Ben asks, sounding exhausted. “Or do you want a Klondike instead?”

She wants to go home and lay down on the couch with him until he feels better. But he brought her to the store for ice cream and she knows he won’t leave without it -- he’s stubborn that way. “Ice cream sandwich,” she says, and doesn’t let go of him as he finally, finally, reaches for the freezer door. 

(He doesn’t cry until later, until they’re kneeling beside Rey’s bed and his hands are folded in front of him and his head is bowed and somehow Rey knows -- He is trying to pray. He is really, truly, trying. He just can’t. And then he makes an awful noise and tips forward, forehead resting on his arms, and he cries and cries and cries. Rey rubs his back and tells him he’s okay over and over again; it doesn’t help him any more than it helps her, but it’s the only thing she knows how to do.)

  
  


*

  
  


She isn’t angry at Luke for acting as her mother’s go-between. 

She thinks Ben might be, a little. He’s trying not to show it, and she knows he’ll get over it soon enough, but it bothers him. It bothers Leia, too. She’s less circumspect about her anger, a little more direct with it. 

But in this, at least, Rey’s not much like Leia. In this, she’s a little more like Luke.

So she isn’t angry. She understands. Or at least, she comes as close as anyone can. 

“She’s never going to change,” she says, sitting on Luke’s sofa, a mug of his tea growing cold between her palms. It’s too hot, really, for tea -- it’d be different if Luke had air conditioning, but he doesn’t. Just fans, blowing hot air around his small apartment, changing nothing. “Is she? There’s always going to be someone else. It’ll never just be me.”

Luke breathes, sips his tea. He’s almost painfully calm. It’s one of the differences between them. “It could be,” he says, finally. “I think, eventually, it could be. But I don’t know if it would still be the kind of relationship you want. Your mother… She prefers a certain kind of guidance. Someone to make the decisions for her. I don’t know that you want to be that person. At least not right now.”

The worst thing is how tempting it is. To just step in like that. Be that person. Have her mother’s attention for now and for always. “But if she needs me --”

“She’s been getting along just fine for the last thirteen years without you.” Luke’s voice never changes -- patient, serene, gentle. “She can survive on her own. She doesn’t like it, but she can. The question isn’t what she needs, Rey. It’s what you need. And I can’t answer that. But I’m pretty sure you already know.”

She does know. She’s known since she was five. Sometimes it still feels like the worst kind of betrayal. “But she’s my mom,” she says, and can’t quite stop her voice from breaking.

“I know,” Luke tells her. “And I know… Rey. I  _ know _ . I loved my father very, very much. And I don’t regret any of the time I spent with him, as hard as it was. I know why you needed to see her, and if you ever decide you need to do it again, I will do whatever I have to to make it safe for you. But do it because you need it. Not because you think she does.”

“Did I need to see her?” It’s meant to be a challenge; it comes out too sincere. “When you told me she’d been asking about me, that she wanted to talk to me, to me and Ben -- Did I need that?”

Luke stays perfectly calm. Rey understands, in this moment, why Leia finds her twin so damned frustrating. “I’m really not the person to ask about that, Rey,” he says. “You’d know better than I would.”

It was his idea. He was the one -- But he wasn’t, of course. That’s not how Luke operates. She hasn’t known him long, but she knows him that well, at least. He told her that her mother was interested in seeing her, if Rey was interested. That she could, if she wanted, but that she didn’t have to. That it was up to her.

It was her choice. And she made it.

She closes her eyes, bows her head, and remembers how it felt to have her mother’s arms around her again. To know that, no matter what else happened, her mother still loved her at least a little.

“Yeah,” she says, finally, tears stinging her eyes. “I needed it.”

Luke is quiet for a long time. She doesn’t even hear him set his tea down, or the rustle of his clothes as he stands up. He’s just there, suddenly, prying her mug from nerveless fingers. She tips her head up to look at him -- the gray beard, gray hair, gray t-shirt and hoodie and khaki trousers. His eyes are the same faded denim blue as her mother’s. She didn’t notice before, because she didn’t remember her mother’s eyes then. She knows them now. “Let me get you some more tea,” he says.

But he doesn’t leave. He stands there for a long moment, then stoops down to kiss her forehead. It feels like a benediction, like a blessing.

Luke smiles at her, then takes her mug and shuffles away toward the kitchen, leaving Rey with the strangest feeling of peace.

  
  


*

  
  


She wanted to go home. 

Not to their little house in the First Order Compound. Not there. She hated that place. She hated the First Order. She hated Plutt, and Snoke, and everyone here except her mom and Kylo Ren and maybe some of the other kids, but most of them were gone anyway. And she didn’t like Desiree or Thomas that much. And she didn’t know what to think about Hux. 

She knew she wanted to go home, though. Back to that little house by the railroad tracks, with the road noise outside and her small bed and the drafty windows. All the dirty dishes piled up in the oven because her mom had gotten behind on washing them and couldn’t make herself start up again and then they got really gross and it was too much so they just sat there. Rey would wash them all. She would clean the rings out of the tub and the rust out of the toilet. She would do anything.

She didn’t even need to go home, not really. She just needed to be anywhere but here.

Anywhere at all.

Footsteps on the gravel path, and Rey flinched. She knew she wasn’t supposed to be here, where all the guns were. She was too little, and a girl besides. She could hurt herself. No one yelled, though. The footsteps just kept crunching along, like they hadn’t even seen her. Curious, she glanced up.

Kylo Ren was walking towards her, but he wasn’t really looking at her. She thought, maybe, he wasn’t looking at anything. Like he was thinking so hard his eyes had just sort of… stopped. And his face was so pale, even in the sunlight. He looked scared, and alone. Lost.

He looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there.

“Kylo?” Rey asked, and then immediately regretted it. Kylo was very busy. Kylo was very important. Rey was a distraction, and there wasn’t time for her. She shouldn’t bother him; she shouldn’t --

He plopped down on the seat next to her. “Hi,” he said.

Something about the way he said it caught Rey, made her turn to look at him. He’d been so frightened just a second ago. But now, looking at Rey, he was practically beaming. “Hi,” she said back, quietly. 

Kylo Ren smiled at her a little more, then reached out and took her hand. It felt like… She couldn’t explain it. It felt like a question she’d already answered, somehow. It made her want to smile like he was smiling. Like something good was just around the corner, even if she didn’t know what it was.

In case he could tell her, she asked, “Why are you smiling?”

Kylo just shrugged. He didn’t let go of her hand. “Because I’m happy,” he said.

A minute ago, he’d been as miserable as she was, if not more. Then she said his name, and he saw her, and now he was happy again. It didn’t make sense, but Rey wasn’t about to question a good thing.

“Okay,” she said, and tipped her head against his arm. She couldn’t even see her hand in his -- she was so small and he was so big that his hand just swallowed hers up. It was comforting, in a strange way. He was so big he could protect her from anything. “Okay.”

“You’ll understand,” he promised her, and she believed him. He’d gone to Snoke for her. He’d tried. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. “Soon. It’ll all make sense soon, I promise.”

“Okay,” she said again, and closed her eyes. And just for that moment, she didn’t want to be anywhere but where she was.

  
  


*

  
  


Finally, painfully, her mother nods. “All right,” she says, finally. Bravely. For the first time, Rey feels what it’s like to choose, and she hates it. “That’s… That’s fine. I understand.”

“ _ Mom _ .” Rey reaches across the table, lets her hands close over her mother’s, around the cool damp paper of her cup. “I’m not -- I’m not mad at you, okay? I’m not mad. I don’t -- You know I love you. I need you to know that. I love you so, so much. I just need… I need to think about some things. But I’m not mad at you. I promise.”

The worst thing is the hope that lights up her mother’s face, even as she says, “You know you have the right to be. Rey, I -- I should’ve come to you sooner. I shouldn’t have made you wait like this. I can’t apologize for that. There’s nothing I can do to make it up to you.”

“It doesn’t matter.” And in that moment, it really doesn’t. It probably never will. Rey loves her mother. She doubts she will ever be truly able to stop. “I still love you. It’s just… A lot of things have happened lately. I need to… To think about some of them. A little. Luke can still find you, though. When I’m ready. Right?”

A thin smile. “Of course he can. He always could. Rey --” There is something her mother is on the verge of saying, something that hangs, suspended, between them. And then she just leaves it there. Hanging. “Maybe we both need to think about some things. For a little while.”

It is the closest her mother has come thus far to being cold, and Rey lets her hands fall away from her mother’s, confused and hurt. “Of course,” she says. “Of course. I… I know Ben and I, we’re not what you expected. If you need time, that’s --”

“It isn’t you.” Rey’s mother takes one of Rey’s hands in one of hers. Her grip is looser, maybe, than Rey needs it to be. “Okay? It’s not -- But Ben’s right. I learned some things that it’s hard to forget. Harder at my age, maybe. But everything I said about how proud I was of you, Rey, I meant it. You are beautiful, and strong, and good, and -- And I don’t understand everything in your life right now, but I want to try. I do. And I will. I promise. But it won’t come quickly. If you lose patience, I’ll -- I’ll understand. I will.”

“I can be patient,” Rey says, although she is not, as a rule, a very patient person. She wants to be, and maybe that’s enough. “I can be patient, Mom.”

“Okay.” But the sadness in Rey’s mother’s eyes doesn’t leave. She lets go of Rey’s hands. “Thank you. For meeting with me. It’s -- It was good to see you again. And you too, Ben. I still can’t thank you enough for what you did for my daughter. I’m so very glad she has you.”

Ben just nods. He stares at Rey’s mother for a moment, and then blurts out, “You should know -- I’ve been praying for you. Since we left. Because I know -- I know how hard it is, when you’ve been taught a certain way. To forget what you learned. I know it’s hard. So I’ve been praying for you, that God would help you with that. And I’ll keep praying. And I hope, maybe, it gets easier. Eventually.”

Rey’s mother’s eyes fill with tears; she dabs at them with the knuckles of one hand. “Thank you,” she says, fervently. “That… Thank you. That means a great deal.”

Ben nods again. Then he turns to Rey. “Are you -- I can give you a moment to say goodbye. If you want.”

It seems so final, the way he says it. Like this is the last time. Like there will never be another. Rey’s eyes fill up with tears, and she struggles to blink them back. 

“Not like --” He reaches out for her shoulder quickly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean --”

“It’s not goodbye,” her mother says, and smiles. “It’s just ‘See you later.’ But give me a hug before you go, okay?”

“Okay,” Rey whispers, voice still choked deep in her throat.

Ben slides out of his seat to make room for her, stepping back quickly, almost tripping over his own feet in his hurry to get out of the way. Once he’s gone, it takes a long time for Rey to even begin to move. It’s just… hard. After waiting so long for this, to suddenly be at the end.

“It’s just ‘See you later,’” her mother says again, softer this time. Just for Rey’s ears.

It’d be comforting if Rey believed her. After thirteen years, she’s not so sure anymore. 

But she stands up anyway, waits for her mother to stand up to. Steps in -- leans her head against her mother’s, her arms around her mother’s shoulders, her mother’s arms around her waist. Clinging again. She always clung to Rey when there was no one else to cling to.

“Don’t wait so long next time, okay?” Rey asks. “Even if I don’t -- Write me, or something. Send a postcard. Don’t -- I thought you hated me. I thought you were so angry. I thought --”

“I’m so sorry,” her mother says, and she’s crying now. Rey’s crying too, tears streaming down her face. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t -- I was never angry, Rey. I never hated you. I love you. I love you so much.”

Rey doesn’t ask why she was so silent for so long, then. How she could stay away so long, if she loved Rey so much. It won’t fix what happened anyway. Nothing will. “Then don’t wait,” she says again. “Not like that. Not for that long. Please.”

“Okay,” her mother says. “Okay. I’ll try. I really will.”

_ Try _ isn’t enough. Rey doesn’t want her mother to try; she wants her to  _ promise _ , the way Ben promises. She wants to hear the words and know that her mother means them, that she’ll keep her promise, the way Ben does. Ben always keeps his promises.

She wants that from her mother.

But she knows she’s not going to get it, so she squeezes her mother a little tighter, tries to pull her into the safe grip of memory as best she can -- the feel of her arms and the way she’s shorter than Rey now, the softness of her scarf and how the gray in her hair makes it feel wirier, the damp of her tears on Rey’s jaw and neck and the heat of her breath and the heaviness, the solidity of her. She may never, ever, feel this again. She wants to hold it as long as she can.

And when there’s nothing else she can do, she lets go, and wipes at her eyes with her knuckles, and feels Ben step up behind her again, solid as a wall.

“I’ll try,” her mother says, one last time. “I really will.”

“I know,” Rey says, even though she doesn’t. Not at all.

Ben’s hand slips into hers again.

  
  


*

  
  


“Here’s what I know,” Ben says, finally. He’s slumped out of his prayer posture, sitting back on the floor between his bed and Rey’s, with Rey tugged into his lap. She’s a lot taller than she was when she and Ben ran away, but Ben is taller too, so it feels like she’s exactly the same as it was then.

Except it doesn’t, because she didn’t really know Ben that well, then. She trusted him, but she didn’t know him.

She knows him better now, and that feels different.

“I broke my parents’ hearts, Rey. I was really hard on my dad, and I lied to my mom, and I didn’t tell either of them -- I didn’t tell them anything, pretty much. And I dropped out of school, and I ran away, and it doesn’t matter why I did it, not really. I knew it would hurt them, and I did it anyway, and it  _ did  _ hurt them, I know that, but --” He wraps his arms around her, sighs into her hair. “But when I needed someone, I called my dad, and he was there. Right there, without question. After everything I did to him, and my mom, and it was like -- Like none of it mattered. I needed them, and they were there, and that was it. They didn’t care about anything else. They didn’t forgive me because they didn’t need to. They just loved me. They just love me. That’s all that counts. Everything else… It just doesn’t matter.

“And if you did what I did -- not that you would, but if you did. Or if you did worse, even. If you stole… I mean, I guess I stole the car and everything from the First Order, so -- But if you did that. Or if you hurt someone. Or maybe even killed someone, not that I think you would. But if you did. It wouldn’t matter to me, Rey. It wouldn’t matter at all. And I wouldn’t need to forgive you. I just love you. That’s it. And it’s everything.

“You didn’t do anything bad. You don’t need to be forgiven for anything. And your mom -- And I know you’re going to be mad at me about this, and that’s okay, but -- Your mom shouldn’t have to forgive you to love you. To be there for you. Your mom shouldn’t need anything but the fact that she loves you. Because that’s her job. And if she does need to forgive you, then… Then maybe she’s not a good mom.”

And Rey can feel Ben bracing himself, his arms going loose around her, like he’s waiting for her to start crying and fight her way out of his arms and hide in the bed under the covers and not talk to him until tomorrow morning. And she does want to cry. 

But she’s not mad. She’s not sure why; she just isn’t.

She twists around as best she can until her face is tucked up against Ben’s shirt, until his arms tighten around her again. “You love me?” she asks him.

“Yeah, I love you,” he says, like she should have already known. Maybe she should have. Anyway, she believes him. She knows him too well not to. “You’re my sister, and I love you, and I am always gonna take care of you. I promise.”

And Ben keeps his promises. Rey can’t think of a single time he hasn’t.

“Okay,” she manages, finally, and keeps twisting herself deeper into his arms. “Okay.”

“Always,” Ben says, and folds himself around her, and Rey believes him. She absolutely does.

  
  


*

  
  


“I know it’s not the Falcon,” Han says, when a good thirty seconds have ticked by and Rey still hasn’t managed to get any words out. “But it’s a damned good vehicle. Built like a tank.” He thumps the hood for emphasis, hard, and then tries to cover a wince. “You know this used to be the main vehicle for the Alaskan Postal Service? I mean, not this one exactly. Those are harder to come by. But it’s still --”

“You bought me a car,” Rey manages, finally. Although she’s not sure it’s a car exactly. It’s more like a truck. A short truck. Or a very long Jeep. Something like that.

It has to be older than she is. It might be older than Ben.

“It’s a Jeep.” Han shakes his hand out like it still stings, comes back to stand by her side. “One of the old Scramblers. Chewie saw it at auction, figured he and I could fix it up, re-sell it maybe. Or maybe not. Anyway, I figured -- you’re eighteen. Nineteen now, I guess. Hard to get into any kind of trouble with your brother driving you around everywhere.” He gives her an appraising look. “Or, if trouble’s not your thing, you’re still gonna need to get around. Especially if something happens to that truck of his. Don’t like that thing. Don’t like it at all.”

Han has spent all summer poking around under the hood of Ben’s truck, trying to fix whatever’s wrong with it. Except there was nothing wrong with it in April. There is probably less wrong with it now. And it’s definitely a hell of a lot safer than that deathtrap Han calls The Millennium Falcon. 

This thing -- this white and orange, half-Jeep, half-truck  _ thing _ \-- is probably going to die a good decade before Ben’s old black truck does.

Rey loves it already.

She throws her arms around Han, squeezes him tightly. “Thanks,” she says.

After a few seconds, he hugs her back. “You’re welcome,” he says. And then, “Feel free to stop crushing me any time your arms get tired. I won’t take it personally.”

She knows she’s not hugging him  _ that _ hard, but she eases up anyway. 

“Also,” he says. “Any time you want to come visit. Just saying.”

She could visit, if she wanted. She could come see Leia and sit on the porch with her and rock in the swing together. She could drive out to Chewie’s garage and let him and Han teach her about oil changes and wheel bearings and catalytic converters. She could have lunch with Poe. She could even drive out to San Diego to see Hux, maybe. Finn doesn’t have a car. She could take him out to see Hux. 

She could go visit Jonette at Albion, or Jesska at Hope, or Andrew at Grand Valley.

She could go north, even. If she missed it enough. Go camping for a while, or stay in one of their old hotel rooms. Finally do Blissfest for the whole weekend instead of just a day trip out.

She could go anywhere. 

As long as the Scrambler doesn’t break down. Which it probably will in the first month, but that’s okay. It’s still hers.

“Thanks,” she says again. 

Han hugs her a little closer. “Happy Birthday, kiddo,” he says. “Happy Birthday.”

  
  


*

  
  


She woke up a little bit right when Kylo was putting her in the back seat of the car.

Maybe she didn’t wake up. Maybe she dreamed it.

She doesn’t remember anymore. 

What she remembers is this:

She opened her eyes, saw Kylo bending over her. He was messing with a seatbelt -- she heard the click of it, felt the strap crossing over her waist. “Kylo?” she asked, quiet.

He lifted his head to look at her. “Yeah, Rey?” he asked. He sounded maybe a little nervous. She couldn’t think of why.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

It took him a second to answer. Finally, he said. “Home. We’re going home.”

She still doesn’t know why, but she believed him.

“Okay,” she said. It got really dark then, or maybe her eyes just closed again. She was so tired. She’d been up so long, waiting for him. She wasn’t waiting anymore. He’d finally come. “Can we have pancakes for breakfast?”

Another pause. Rey wished she could open her eyes to see his face again, but then she hadn’t really been able to see it before. Just his hair, and his big ears, and the way his shoulders were broad and square like he had a board underneath his shirt. “Sure, Rey,” he said. “Sure. We can have pancakes. Whatever you want.”

He kissed her cheek -- his long nose grazing her temple -- and then he was gone and the car door slammed shut, and she was out like a light again.

  
  


*

  
  


They could keep going, take 127 north as far as they can, until they hit I-75. And then they could take that all the way to the Bridge, cross it and keep going. Iron Mountain, maybe, or Escanaba, or the Soo. Run the way Ben meant to, the first time, before he found himself too tired to keep going. Disappear for real.

Rey doesn’t really want to, of course. She wants to now, maybe, but she won’t in an hour or so. Tomorrow. A week from now. She won’t want to disappear. She’ll want to come back again.

It still stings, a little, when Ben doesn’t keep heading north; when they turn east on 94 instead.

Not much. Just a little.

“I’m really sorry,” Rey says, glancing at Ben. He’s still pale, hands tight on the steering wheel. “Ben? I’m sorry. I should’ve --”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” He sounds exhausted. But he still takes his eyes from the road for a second, looks at her. Tries to smile. “You didn’t -- It’s not your fault.”

_ I was never angry. I never hated you. _

Abruptly, Rey is crying, harder than she had in the middle of that Wendy’s, with her mother’s arms tight around her waist. Her mother  _ loved _ her -- her mother hugged her and touched her face and told her she was beautiful, strong, brave, smart. It shouldn’t hurt this much. Why does it  _ hurt _ this much?

“Rey.” The sound of the rumble strip as Ben abruptly steers them to the shoulder, gravel scattering and horns blaring behind them, cars streaking past. “Rey, Rey --”

He unbuckles his seat belt, slides across the bench seat to wrap himself around her, and she hiccups into his chest. She never did catch up to him. By the time he’d stopped growing, he was bigger than she’d ever be. She still feels like a little kid sometimes when he hugs her.

It feels safe, that’s the worst part. It always does and it probably always will.

“I didn’t do anything  _ wrong _ ,” she manages, finally. “She loves me. She told me she loves me. So  _ why _ \--”

Why did it take thirteen years. Why was she still more interested in Ben than her own daughter. Why couldn’t she offer anything more than  _ I’ll try _ , when Ben has always, always given her  _ I promise. _

“I don’t know,” Ben says, and rocks back and forth in the seat as much as he can with Rey still strapped in by her seatbelt. “I’m sorry, Rey. I’m so sorry.”

“It isn’t  _ fair _ ,” she says, and then she’s crying too hard to catch her breath, crying too hard to talk, and she stops trying.

Ben holds her, rocks her as best he can.

It should have been him from the start. She should have always been his sister. And Leia and Han and Luke and Poe could have always been her family. And it wouldn’t have to feel like this. Like she was choosing. 

Like she was giving up on her own mother.

Even if, maybe, her mother gave up first.

It isn’t fair. 

  
  


*

  
  


She remembers the first time Ben told her he loved her, but she can’t remember the first time she said it back. 

He said it first, she knows that. She started after. Not very long; she’s been saying it forever, now. It feels like she’s been saying it her own life. But she can’t remember when she started. 

She doesn’t know why it matters. It just does.

Ben finishes praying, lets his hands fall away from the side of Rey’s mattress, pulls back. Lean in to kiss Rey’s hair. “You want to talk about it?” he asks.

Ben would know the first time she told him she loved him. Probably down to the minute. Rey doesn’t ask. “Were you scared?” she asks, instead. “When we came here, the first time. With your parents waiting. Were you scared?”

“Petrified,” he says. “Which I’m pretty sure you already knew.”

She did, of course. She remembers how quiet he got, the closer they came to Northville. How he just sat there, frozen, when they pulled into the drive. Staring at the two figures on the porch. 

It went all right in the end, of course. But it was different. It was Ben’s parents. It was different.

“What if this is a mistake?” she asks. “What if -- I don’t know, what if she wants to hurt you, or something? For betraying Snoke. What if --”

“Luke would know,” Ben tells her. He sounds pretty confident. “He wouldn’t let us near her if he thought she was dangerous. Anyway, there’s going to be a cop there. Hux’s dad worked it all out. I’m not worried about me, Rey. You shouldn’t be either.”

She has to, though. It’s easier than the alternative. 

“It’s been thirteen years,” she whispers. Thirteen years since she ran away from the First Order, and in all that time, Rey’s mother hasn’t so much as sent a postcard. There has to be a reason. Her mother wouldn’t just abandon her like that for no reason.

Rey wants to know, but at the same time, she doesn’t. Not really. 

Ben wraps around her, long arms pulling her close, his chin resting on the top of her head. “I’ll be there,” he promises. “I’ll be right there with you. I won’t make you leave if you don’t want to; I won’t say anything at all if you want to do the talking. But I’ll be there. I promise.”

“I know,” Rey says. Because that’s been thirteen years too. Thirteen years of Ben at her side through everything. Sometimes she’s still so grateful for him that it almost hurts. “I know.”

“You’re not going to be alone,” he says, and Rey nods, nose grazing his collarbones. “Just remember that. No matter she says. You’ll always have me.”

“I know,” Rey says again, and she does. 

But she’s still afraid. That part probably won’t stop until she sees her mother again.

It might not even stop until a lot later. 

She’ll do it anyway, because she’s better than fear, but still.

  
  


*

  
  


Ben moves her into her dorm room on the Sunday before classes start. She goes over to the apartment for dinner Tuesday night. Wednesday morning is their new official running date before her eleven o’clock English class, and Thursday her roommate wants pizza which is as good an excuse as any to steal a visit with him while he’s at work.

She still feels a little like she hasn’t really breathed all week. Like she’s forgotten what oxygen is until late Friday afternoon, when she finally unlocks the door to the apartment and steps inside, closing it behind her. Water’s running in the kitchen; Ben’s doing dishes. 

He still hears the door, of course. Still hears her dropping her duffel bag on the floor. “Rey?” he calls.

“Hey,” she says, and then the water is shutting off and Ben is coming out of the kitchen, wiping sudsy hands on his jeans. He’s a little stubbly. He looks a little tired. She wonders how he’s sleeping without her in the other room.

She knows how she’s been sleeping. Not great. 

“Hey,” he says, reaching out, and she steps into the circle of his arms, clutches his waist and rests her cheek against her chest, and for a second the rest of it doesn’t matter. She gets forty-eight hours here, with him. Home.

She doesn’t want to spend it thinking about how hard last week was, or how hard next week is going to be. She just wants to be here.

“Missed you,” she says, right into the big yellow M on his chest.

“Missed you, too.” His chin digs in to the top of her head. “Hope you didn’t want to do anything tonight. Because I literally just want to sit on the couch and watch movies. Just you and me. That’s okay, right? You don’t want to call Poe, or Finn or --”

“That’s perfect,” she says, and relaxes against him. His wet hands are soaking through the back of her t-shirt and she absolutely doesn’t care. She’s got clothes here anyway.

“Okay, good,” Ben says, soft, above her. And then, “I really, really missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” she reminds him. “That’s why I came home.”

He takes a deep breath; Rey can feel it run through him, the way they’re holding each other. “Home,” he echoes, suddenly close to tears.

“Home,” Rey says again, just so he’ll know she means it, and closes her eyes, and doesn’t let go.

**Author's Note:**

> So as you may have noticed, the title is neither a reference to a Dessa song, nor is it a reference to an Iron and Wine song. (It was, incidentally, a hell of a title to live up to, but that's neither here nor there.) As an apology, and also as a really awesome method of procrastination, I made [a playlist for this story.](https://open.spotify.com/user/lookninjas/playlist/4tI3Qzd8xoiGBRGHdPjDmW) It has both Dessa and Iron and Wine, plus a lot more.


End file.
